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| -Election 2012 |
| French election: final polls suggest swing to Sarkozy |
| 2012-05-06 |
| Socialist voters face a nervous wait for the results of today's presidential election runoff between Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande after final opinion polls following Wednesday's fiery television debate revealed a late surge in favour of the outgoing president, who has trailed his leftwing rival throughout the race. The polls indicated that Hollande was still on track to win the second round runoff vote, but revealed that the gap between the presidential rivals had narrowed from 10 percentage points a week ago to between four and six. An Ifop poll for Paris-Match showed Hollande at 52% and Sarkozy at 48%. On Friday, before the official midnight deadline for campaigning to end, Hollande warned his supporters not to consider the election as being in the bag. At his last campaign meeting in Périgueux in south-west France, he said the battle was not yet won. "It's true that you are confident and you want to win. I feel it," he told the crowd and sounding a note of caution. "I don't want to be a killjoy, but don't make what could be the fatal mistake of thinking that the game is already over … that you needn't turn out. I have to tell you that I am sure of nothing. This victory is still not certain." At his final campaign meeting at the Sables-d'Olonne on France's Atlantic coast, Sarkozy, who needs to pick up votes from Marine Le Pen's far-right Front National, which scored nearly 18% in the first round of polling, was still confident that he could snatch victory and promised that Sunday's result would be a "surprise". "Each of you has the future of the country in your hands," he said. "Nobody's vote counts more than another. You have no idea how many things are at play on this knife edge." If the Socialist candidate is elected the 24th president of the French republic, Hollande and his supporters are expected to hold a party at the Bastille on his return to Paris . His campaign team has refused to give details of any planned celebrations, for fear of appearing too confident and spooking the electorate. However, the square, former site of the notorious prison overrun and later destroyed during the French Revolution, is seen as the most likely venue for a mass gathering because of its powerful association with the left. As Sarkozy has discovered to his cost, celebrations matter in politics. His decision to savour his 2007 victory at one of the most expensive restaurants, Fouquet's, on the Champs Elysées – followed by a holiday on the yacht of a billionaire businessman friend – must have seemed like a good idea at the time. But the image came back to haunt him as the global economic crisis struck, and ultimately served to reinforce the impression of a showy lifestyle and a sense that he was acting as a "president of the rich". During the election race, it was a marked contrast to Hollande's approach, as the Socialist artfully positioned himself as Sarkozy's polar opposite: Monsieur Normal, more Swatch than Rolex and "a man of the people". It was telling that, like Ms Bruni-Sarkozy, Hollande's partner, the former journalist Valérie Trierweiler, was often on the campaign trail, but usually some way behind, out of the camera shot. Hollande has been circumspect about his choice of prime minister and cabinet posts if he wins, insisting that he has not drawn up a shortlist. Speculation has centred on his long-time friend and supporter Jean-Marc Ayrault, 62, deputy mayor of Nantes and head of the Socialist party group in the National Assembly, and Martine Aubry, 61, Hollande's rival for the party's presidential nomination and head of the party. He has promised to have an equal number of women in his government and to reintroduce a ministry of women's rights. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 Think some U.K. currency traders won't be having the day off they had planned (tomorrow is a bank holiday in the U.K.). |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-05-06 17:10 |
| #5 Good luck to us all, European Conservative. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2012-05-06 15:42 |
| #4 Fun tomorrow. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2012-05-06 15:40 |
| #3 Hollande has won |
| Posted by: European Conservative 2012-05-06 14:47 |
| #2 An explanation of FOAT here An excerpt: ...about speculation against France on the new French debt futures (FOAT) market, speculation broadened on the French Left over the last 36 hours in relation to the FOAT founder – Deutsche Borse – and whether a geopolitical move by Berlin might also be part of the mystery. To recap: despite an obvious danger that the new FOAT will allow market-maker Morgan Stanley to hedge its Greco-French exposure to France’s disadvantage, Nicolas Sarkozy allowed the market’s April 16th debut to go ahead. This has created some speculation as to whether Sarkozy plus others may be creating a ‘poison pill’ for Francois Hollande should he win the election. Now the French Left is beginning to accuse Germany of complicity. Deutsche Börse’s new futures contract, they added, “may promote a self-fulfilling prophecy” and shows that Eurex “anticipates speculation against the French debt at a time when the pressure on the sovereign markets continue to escalate.” |
| Posted by: badanov 2012-05-06 13:50 |
| #1 It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the White House tonight. If Hollande gets in, which looks increasingly likely, Obummer re-election will be sunk. The name of the poison pill left by Sarkozy is FOAT. As the Telegraph says: Rather, the market has persuaded itself that Hollande is more moderate than he tried to sound on the stump, and that his "growth agenda" of tax grabs and public-sector job schemes will rapidly be neutralised by force of fiscal circumstance If not FOAT comes into play The Euro starts unraveling, Wall Street takes a big hit and along with it the dollar and the US economy will be in turmoil during the election. So bye, bye Obama. |
| Posted by: tipper 2012-05-06 13:18 |